Such is the number of races now, at least in London, that they tend to blur into one another in the memory. Not so the Cancer Research Winter Run – after all, there aren’t many races where you get high fives from penguins and a cuddle from a polar bear to warm you up at the finish. Oh, and a Lindor chocolate bar. Yum. It was also great to see Jackie Scully who had her hen do at the race (and is following that up by getting married at the London Marathon) – and also to meet some running blog regulars (hi Martin!).

It’s a big race – 16,500 runners this year – but they set you off in fairly small waves, so the event itself lasts a fair few hours, adding to the general atmosphere of freezing frivolity. I had decided to race it, but with the proviso of not looking at my watch. This, I confess, was mostly because not feeling on great form, I didn’t want to take the risk of being discouraged by my pace, and hence slowing down still further.

It was a rather interesting experiment, because if my splits are right (tall buildings and lots of turns can mess with GPS accuracy) then how I felt had precious little to do with the actual pace. For instance, my first mile was equal slowest. Then in the middle I felt I was slowing badly, only to perk up at about 8.5km and do a much faster last km – at which point (still no watch peeking) I felt it must be a really slow time, or I wouldn’t have that much left in my legs. I finished in 39m 54sec – which was very fortunate as I’d have been really annoyed at just ticking over 40min because I didn’t look at the watch!

So, back to some kind of form after all, albeit a lot of work to do before London marathon (11 weeks and counting). So how about you? What did the weekend hold? Penguins and polar bears or parkruns and PBs? As always, spill all below the line …

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